An election worker hands out “I Voted” stickers on Nov. 5, 2024, at the Main Library in Salt Lake City. (Spenser Heaps for Utah News Dispatch)
By Clay Wirestone, Kansas Reflector opinion editor
Election Day has come and gone, for Kansans and non-Kansans alike.
Here in Kansas, Gov. Laura Kelly’s magic touch was nowhere in evidence as Democrats lost ground in both the House and Senate. (It must be embarrassing to be the columnist who dubbed her a “rock star.” I wonder who that guy was? Oh wait …) Presidential candidate Kamala Harris joins the ranks of such defeated Dems as John Kerry, Michael Dukakis and Hubert Humphrey.
Political junkies will pore over the results for months if not years. But news beckons, and I don’t have that long. Here are my 20 hot takes for the 2024 general election, based on array of news, analysis and my own uneasy gut.
Republicans won big in Kansas. Their expanded legislative supermajority means that the GOP can more easily override Kelly. Leaders have mentioned revamping the budget process, along with new corporate tax cuts. Given enthusiasm in past years for school vouchers and anti-trans bills, expect both issues to return come January.
Republicans spent big in Kansas. That’s how you win, of course. Back-of-the-napkin math shows that GOP-allied groups outspent Kelly’s Middle of the Road PAC by a margin of three-to-one. Republicans saw a threat and reacted. Voters followed suit.
No Medicaid expansion, no marijuana. Given the above, don’t expect Medicaid expansion or marijuana legalization of any sort to pass in the next two sessions. Sure, Kansans support both, but so what? Given current leadership of both chambers, expect jack squat.
Support your transgender friends and family. These next few years will be challenging given that Republicans nationally and locally have made opposition to trans rights a centerpiece of their campaigns. Expect them to make good on that rank demogaugery.
The governor’s race starts now. Who will replace Kelly as governor? Perhaps the worst-kept secret in Kansas politics is Republican Senate President Ty Masterson’s nascent campaign for the office. Lt. Gov. Dave Toland, a Democrat, appears to have his eyes on the prize at well. I’m sure others will throw their hats in the ring.
The Midwestern swing fizzled. No matter what the Kansas Speaks survey said or Iowa’s Ann Selzer predicted, the contest did not end up close in either state. While I thought the polls mutually reinforced one another, the skeptics were proven right.
Harris didn’t improve on Biden’s performance in Kansas … While I never thought the vice president would win the Sunflower State, I found it easy to imagine she would improve on Biden’s vote share in the state by a percentage point or two. She didn’t. What’s more, she lagged the current president across the country.
… but she didn’t do much worse. With that being said, Biden finished with about 42% of the Kansas vote in 2020. It looks like Harris will finish with about 41%. That’s not a catastrophic drop-off, and it suggests a decent number of voters wanted the Democrat.
People watch the ABC News presidential debate between Democratic nominee, U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris, and Republican nominee, former U.S. President Donald Trump, on Tuesday, Sept. 10, 2024, at a watch party at The Abbey, a historic gay bar in West Hollywood, California. (Mario Tama/Getty Images)
The national polls were, broadly, correct. Election forecasters suggested the race would be close. It was. Many showed Trump even with or ahead of Harris; he won. I saw substantial reasons to doubt that those same national polls fully captured Harris’ support. That was wrong.
Vibes don’t vote. I wrote about this for Wednesday. Harris, and Democrats more broadly, enjoyed positive vibes and a feeling of momentum going into Election Day. They ran up against a wall of voters who didn’t care. Elections have a clarifying effect, this one more than most.
Voters hated, hated, hated inflation. The United States suffered a brief period of inflation and now enjoys record employment. But commentators should have been more sensitive to the fact that the country hadn’t gone through such an inflationary period for four decades. We had forgotten what rising prices meant, and how folks would react. They couldn’t stand it and blamed the White House.
Don’t be Pauline Kael. The famed New Yorker film critic supposedly said: “I can’t believe Nixon won. I don’t know anyone who voted for him.” While her actual words differed somewhat, the anecdote serves as a warning for progressives who might retreat to ideological bubbles. Moving forward requires a broad understanding of how people think.
Resist the temptation to overanalyze. Both parties will overreact wildly to the election results. Democrats have already entered a dark night of the soul. No doubt many MAGA Republicans envision the rise of a new permanent majority. American politics, directed by a closely divided electorate, almost never works like that.
The majority owns this. During Trump’s first term, many folks opposed to the president worked night and day to prevent his worst impulses from becoming policy and harming the nation. This time round, no one should be surprised by erratic, harmful decision making from Washington, D.C. The majority chose this course with full warning.
Chickens will come home to roost. Those voters will likely regret their decisions soon enough. In one way or another, Trump will show himself as the loathsome, wannabe autocrat has has been since 2015. It may be the mass deportations and tariffs he has promised wrecking the economy. It may be inevitable cuts to the social safety net. Whatever the case, it will hurt.
The authoritarian threat is real. I don’t expect Trump to successfully dismantle our system of government over the next four years. But he could make our nation less democratic, less free and more chilling to those who won’t toe the line. Aspiring politicians will watch for his success or failure.
We’re in for a challenging four years. Don’t expect a return of the social media “resistance” that opposed Trump the first time. Don’t expect massive marches. We all remember how difficult the man’s first term was, and we know now that no court or opposition politician will rush to America’s rescue. These years will be a constant, draining slog without a guaranteed happy ending.
Hold officials accountable. What I plan to do over this time is what I’ve done for the past three years and change. I will share my thoughts and opinions, talk to everyday Kansans devoted to improving their state and hold public officials’ feet to the fire. All of you reading this can do the same.
What’s right is right. Trump will be our next president, no question there. But our nation has made grievous errors before, from our founding sin of chattel slavery to the incarceration of Japanese-Americans during World War II to transphobia today. The reelection of a convicted felon, serial adulterer, rapist and insurrectionist sounds like one of those errors to me.
The one piece of good news. At least voter “fraud” didn’t cause problems this time around, right?
Clay Wirestone is Kansas Reflector opinion editor. Through its opinion section, Kansas Reflector works to amplify the voices of people who are affected by public policies or excluded from public debate. Find information, including how to submit your own commentary, here.
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